5 Comments

I agree this would be an attribute, although it is not a standardised attribute within GSIM V1.0. ABS hasn't standardised "steady states" of data in the past but we are looking to do so now. it would be worth looking at whether, for next version of GSIM, we can come up with a common reference list of steady states to be associated with a standardised attribute?

Following the discussion on 9 April, I see a potentially different way of approaching this question. Perhaps the next generation of the GSIM User Guide could provide a recommended means of extending a local implementation of GSIM to support States of Data. This would save adding an attribute to the formal GSIM specification if there is not yet consensus that such an attribute is relevant to enough NSIs.

The discussion on 9 April, however, further convinced me that some recommendation on this point would be useful - even if it is not built into the formal specification. I heard some people suggest (from memory) it should be an attribute on DataResource where I was thinking of it as an attribute on DataSet. This is an example of how the half dozen or more agencies that are interested in States of Data could all go off and model it, and build it in to systems, in different and incompatible ways. This would impact (in a small way) the ability to more easily share components based on a common information model.

While I agree the exact "allowable values" for States of Data and the business rules applied to specific states of data are matters for local implementation, I think the concept that there are states of data is somewhat prevalent (although not ubiquitous). I continue to believe, therefore, some attempt to establish common high level modelling advice (which can be ignored by implementers if they choose) would be useful.